I love Scotland. More specifically the western highlands and the pollock that knock about along its coast.
My favourite fish.
Its the second year ive joined a party from aberdeenshire on their annual pilgrimage north to fish for sea trout and pollock in the salt and the brownies in the lochs. Whilst i did a bit of everything last year, this year I wanted to concentrate on the pollock and find new marks along the rocky shore.
When the suns out, its spectacular.
It was a case of walking the likely bays and drop offs where deep water became shallow, then making a few casts to see if anyone was at home. Luckily I didn’t have a blank day and caught some of the hardest fighting fish ive come across.
The 10 weight was hooped with that tail!
I used a 10wt orvis helios and a 8wt sage TCX loaded with airflo sniper sink type 7 lines http://www.flylines.com/airflo-fly-lines-forty-plus-sinking-forty-plus-sniper.cfm which were perfect for the job and really hard wearing on the barnacles, limpits and rocks. When the fish takes your sandeel pattern, you have to clamp the line tight and stop the fish from getting into the kelp, other wise its curtains. I lost one fish because it wrapped my leader around the kelp. Believe me, you need heavy gear for decent size pollock over kelp beds…a drop net is handy to sometimes!
Some climbing is involved.
It was great to be with the guys again, they are a great bunch. I promise to do more float tubing with them for the trout next year, but I will not drink wine from a pot noodle pot, as seems to be the aberdeenshire way.
Classy Iain, classy!
See you next year.
Back at yer!
